


bayu bayushki bayu

by sophthebi



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: "good ending" continuation, Adler found it endearing, Adler is a fucking machine, Age Difference, Angst, Bell had a crush on Adler, Bell is the grandchild of Perseus in this fic, Character Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Game: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Other, Past Brainwashing, Sad, Spoilers, Unrequited Crush, and maybe had similar feelings, but not really, lol, mostly angst, one of my theories as to why they were his favourite agent, russian lullaby, there's so many possibilties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27721664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophthebi/pseuds/sophthebi
Summary: Bell comes to terms with her fate and Adler comes to terms with his feelings.
Relationships: Russell Adler/Bell, Russell Adler/Reader, Russell Adler/fem!Bell
Comments: 22
Kudos: 106





	bayu bayushki bayu

**Author's Note:**

> Bayu Bayushki is a beautiful Russian lullaby, and I can't stop listening to Ashley Serena's rendition of it. I also thought it fit Bell and Adler, especially in this fic. 
> 
> Also, not gonna lie, I cried while writing this, I don't know if it's actually that sad or that my crying was warranted lol but I did, like on and off but it might have to do with things other than this fic XD
> 
> Enjoy this angsty fic!

"He'll snatch you up between his teeth  
If on the bed's edge you sleep  
And drag you to the forest deep  
Beneath the quaking tree”

There was a lullaby your _Mother_ would sing to you as a child. It would have been like any other lullaby, and you would have been lulled to sleep like any other little child, but it was _haunted_ now, it had shifted into a fractured memory that you mourned for. Grief, that is what it was, what you were feeling when you were forced to relive someone else’s memory, his memory … 

_Adler_. 

No, you would not think of him as you lay in the dirt, bleeding from your neck, the drowning red bubbling like rapids from your mouth … no, you wouldn’t let go. 

You sang, out of tune and full of pain. You sang in your mother tongue, and the sound of the familiar notes brought sobs out of you, tears upon tears. 

“ _Sleep … my … darling ... tiny_ ,” you made a harsh sound, gulping for air, drowning in your own blood, “ _my darling tiny one. Tucked within your bed so tight_.” He was in the corner of your eye, standing over you, gun limp in his hand. Your hand was latched onto the gun wound, the one he made. 

No … don’t think of him.

“ _Else the old grey wolf will come_.” He was becoming clearer and clearer in your vision, knelt beside your cold, so very cold body. You didn’t want to look, every time you did, even now, your stomach flipped, childish and immature. _You would have followed him anywhere_ … lie or not, you had adored him, you adored him and he knew … “ _And grab you by your side_.” His callus ridden hand grasped yours, gentle, and you didn’t want to rip it away.

Your eyes met his, no longer hidden by those stupid sunglasses … His eyes, not a tear, not a sign of sadness. You could feel your brows furrow, eyes begging him to show anything, comfort, or confirmation that he knew how you felt about him. 

You wondered if your feelings were misinformed, maybe the reason you felt so drawn to him was his internal resemblance to your grandfather … _Perseus_. Your grandfather, your mentor, the person you had followed anywhere … you wondered what made you see him in such a light, his mission, but you knew it was as simple as the way you had quickly seen Adler in the same very light … 

Brainwashed … manipulated into not making a choice, but following, forever fucking following an ideal you may not have believed in if you had been given the choice. And when you finally made a choice, to betray your past, to save people, innocent people, it was all taken away. If you were fated to live, which you knew wasn’t to be, you would have asked to leave this all behind, live somewhere quiet and far away from all of it. Be a young woman, a normal young woman, not some agent or killing machine that had traumas both real and fictional. 

Your mother came to mind again, in the slowly rising sun. 

_Solovetsky_. You knew the taste of the wind, the sound of the White Sea. Calm and beautiful, like your mother that you no longer knew the name of … did she have blue eyes or brown? Was her hair dark or light? It was pure anguish that had you snarling at the man above you. 

He was waiting it out, waiting for you to just … die. To _disappear_. 

You wanted to hate him … for what he did to you in those labs. The footage, the voices, loud and repeated over and over. We have a job to do … Replacing memories with war, when in truth you were safe and home. You no longer knew your own age … lost nearly every part of yourself. 

“I have died already,” you whispered, dribbling blood. His grip loosened, scars growing darker almost. Everything about him darkened into something sad, _an old wolf_ … like the one mother would warn you about before bed. “Just as I will die now.” Adler watched you without speaking, beautiful mouth unmoving. “But when I die here in my homeland, you will not take my soul. You have no hold on me, no one does. My mother waits for me …” He couldn’t hold your gaze, and you hated it, desperate you held his hand harder, brought it to your chest. “I don’t hate you for it … I don’t hate anyone.”

He _smiled_ … a little and for a moment. It made you want to smile. 

“If we were anywhere else, another world, I would have kissed you by now,” you couldn’t help but say out loud. He didn’t look surprised, if anything, there was a strange hope, a lightness to his distance and unknowing. Light brown hair soft and dewy in the dawning sky.

 _He was so beautiful_ …

“I would have let you down, kid.” His fingers lightly brushed your hair from the sticky blood, lingering by your cheekbone, feathering to your neck where your hand was pressed. “I would have kissed you back.” 

You smiled, crying again. 

This time there wasn’t a sadness, the way he looked at you, it didn’t scare you anymore. He had confessed to something you’d been wondering ever since you met him. In a way, it was closure. The lingering looks, you following him around like a lost puppy, the way he stood near in the safehouse. He knew he was going to kill you from the beginning, a small mercy then that you didn’t act on it, nor did he. 

But he did. Eventually. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to your forehead. It was enough for you to let go, senses leaving you, a comforting coldness finally rising to claim themselves as victor, having defeated your once desperation to live as long as you could. 

In your mind, you heard your mother lulling you to sleep, a forever sleep, and a fiery hand caressing the roundness of your face. 

_Maybe you’d see him again_.

*

Russell watched silently as you finally ceased to exist, fluttering eyes closing, lashes resting peacefully atop your cheekbones. The beginning rays of sunlight glowed on your body and his. 

_He didn’t cry_. He had always known he’d kill you. 

But he was also human, and he mourned in his own way. 

He’d never forget your presence, or the fact that he had in a sort of strange way, _cared_ for you. The way you looked at him … there were lies, yes, but not even a lie could suppress someone’s soul. 

He would miss the way you blushed when he looked in your eyes, how you lingered by his side, the scent of you sweet and unlike how you should have been.

He would forever remember holding you in his arms, remember observing you from a far and up close. Your defiance that turned to adoration and loyalty, and your final choice. In the end you had chosen to help them. You were good, and he mourned not having known you in another world, because he _would have_ kissed you, and he _would have_ loved you in the way he couldn’t in this one. 

He placed his sunglasses on your chest and - careful to your limp body - rested your hands atop of them. He hummed the lullaby you sang, the one you sang when you fell asleep in the safehouse, the one you sang as you bled to death on Solovetsky. 

He was the old wolf that had to take you away from home, he’d keep your song in his memory till it was his time to die. 

“ _Goodbye Bell_.”


End file.
